It's a supply and demand thing. More demand than supply and prices go up. Plus, as in everything nowadays, cost of production goes up constantly. Farm machinery runs on fuel. Fuel prices have skyrocketed. If you don't get it straight off the field at harvest time, you also pay for storage. Farmers can't afford to play around with their assets.
As SR says, some hay suppliers certainly take advantage.
In my case, I can't even find pasture hay or roundbales. Only small squares of alfalfa, oat, 3-way. I get orchard/timothy hay from the feedstore, for 21$ for a 85lbs bale. It's coming from Oregon, so trucking it in is included in the price. Drought affects us here, too, even tho most hay comes from irrigated fields. But irrigation costs money.
So I don't blame the producer for higher prices, unless it's really bad hay which shouldn't be sold as horse hay

Round bales do not need to be stored under cover. If you lay them on their sides rather than on end the rain/snow doesn't really penetrate. They are easy to feed too, you just flake it off and pitch it over the fence if you want to feed your separated horses out of the same bale.

Ah yes... Remembering why I left this forum 3 years ago.... Way to many bored people that thrive on starting drama and making a poster feel bad about anything they posted.... I was simply stating I understand upping the prices... But they have gone out of proportion....

My reply was not to make the original poster feel bad, it was a simple statement of fact. In some places in the country there is less hay to be had so prices are up. Here in Mid Michigan square bales are going for $8-13/bale right now if you can find it.

Do I have sympathy for those who are struggling to buy hay this year? You bet I do, my board was substantially raised because of it. In fact I put off building a barn this year and bringing our horses home due to the fact I didn't have a solid source for hay for the winter and was not about to get in a squeeze and worry about feeding my horses.

Do I also have sympathy for those farmers whose hay crop failed? Again, yes I do because I know how hard it is to run a business. Their production costs have skyrocketed, and the money to cover that + the shortfall has to come from somewhere. In this case, it's reflected in the higher costs for those of us on the consumer end of the deal. ECON 101...simple supply vs. demand.

Far from being a bored internet troll, I am quite busy and among other things I am active with our local haybank which tries hard to help locate low cost hay for those in need. It seems like the thing to do, helping out rather than just complaining about the situation.

OK... No reason to act as though im un-educated.... asking do they not teach supply and demand anymore... that's just being rude... I didnt ask anyone to preach to me and be rude.. 99 percent of the posts on here are rude responding to me.... my point was more of I understand which I SAID IN MY ORIGINAL post...but think its been pushed a little far..... And for you to be rude about my farmer friend with the name you called him....a little un called for... and I never said I was selling my horses... I said if you read the whole thing AT THE BOTTOM that I can afford it just saying its tight this year and the people that were just making it by now are going to be forced to sell!!! I don't understand the reasoning of everyone bashing me at all... SO that being said... Keep your comments to your self or go ahead but ill not be returning to this post. Have a nice afternoon

Oh boo hoo, you're the one who said this 'friend' told you he was taking advantage of people by raising his prices, and yet you're screaming about everyone else who might be doing it by saying they're unscrupulous, so what makes HIM any different?

You're also the one who said things like 'outrageous' and 'scam', so just who's the one riding their drama llama around?

You wanted people to get up in arms and be indignant about how you're being taken advantage of, and we explained why you weren't. That made you mad, so you started slinging insults and pouting.

I have a theory with this hay shortage, and I would like to share it. I do believe that there is a current shortage going on right now, but I also believe it has become worse due to hoarding. I believe that individuals are keeping a larger inventory of hay than they would ordinarily going into winter because of the uncertainty of being able to find it in the future. Thus a relatively small shortage has turned into a very serious problem for those who buy their hay. Hoarding has left less for others to buy. I'm seeing this in my own dad. He bales all of our hay and normally sells a good portion of it before winter. This year he has started to rent another barn and is storing all of the extra hay there. He says he feels more comfortable knowing for certain that we have more than enough hay for the winter than just enough to make it through. I don't blame him when it comes to that, but I think if many other farmers have the same viewpoint then that could be contributing heavily to the problem. Again, it is just a theory. ;D

A few years ago we had a drought and the prices for a round bale were $100.00 a bale. I was talking with a farmer who thought that was a rediculous price, so he sold his bales much cheaper. Other farmers bought it and then resold and made more money off them. I thought that was ignorant, one farmer trying to help out others and then taken advantage of.
He said he would never do that again.

In that year of the drought their were bales that didn't sell they ended up sitting for years and rotting. Wouldn't they have been better off selling for a decent price in the first place?? IDK that's my rant...I see alot of rotten bales sitting in fields and never sold.
I understand prices go up and droughts happen and they need to make money and make a living , but that's what urked me when people were in need and those bales just sat and rotted instead.

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